Common Clay

{Large Ironslime slain! Soul increases by 20!}

{Achievement Reinforced! Slimebane: 10% increase to all skills and damage against slimes. Bonus increases to 20% versus Small Ironslimes and Large Ironslimes.}

{Commoner reaches Level 9!}

{Maximum level for all Stats is now 24!}

{Experience gained (Leader: Gain Inspire Skill. Gain 5% bonus to all skills when leading heroes. Allied heroes gain 10% bonus to all skills.)}

{Experience gained (Stubborn: Fatigue lessened by 20%. Wounds heal 10% faster.)}

Clay straightened up in surprise. He hadn’t realized he’d even been close to the limit for leveling up; it had been so long that he’d mostly just forgotten about it. The remains of the large ironslime continued to slump back beneath the ground; this one he’d managed to yank out of the ground, using a combination of strength and Firm Step to bring its core to the surface. His nose still wrinkled from the putrid smell, but he just stepped back and brought up his [Gift] for the first time in what seemed like forever.

[Clay Evergreen]

[Class: Commoner] {Level 9} (All Stats have a maximum of 24)

[Subclass: Laborer (Gain 10% bonus to all skills when performing repetitive tasks)]

[Soul: 0/900]

[Stats] {Might: 23} {Fortitude: 23} {Insight: 23} {Memory: 23} {Valor: 23} {Will: 23}

[Experiences]

{Farmhand: Gain 10% bonus to all skills when performing Farming activities. Gain Planting, Harvesting, and Husbandry skills.}

{Hunter: Gain 10% bonus to all skills when hunting wildlife. Gain Trapping and Tracking skills.}

{Slayer II: Gain 20% bonus to all skills when hunting monsters.}

{Forrester: Gain 5% bonus to all skills inside of a forested area. Gain extra 15% bonus to the Tracking skill in a forested area.}

{Watcher: Gain Analysis Skill. Gain 10% bonus to Tracking skill}

{Ambusher: Gain Hide Skill. Gain 10% bonus to all attacks from hiding. Gain 10% bonus to Trapping skill.)}

{Exterminator: Gain double the bonus from all Bane Achievements.}

{Determined: Fatigue lessened by 10%. Wounds heal 5% faster. Gain 10% bonus to repetitive or familiar activities.}

{Defiant: Gain 20% bonus to all skills when facing an opponent of a higher level.}

{Smallmage: Can chant minor Chants 10% faster. Gain 20% effectiveness for minor Chants.}

{Valiant: Gain 10% bonus to all skills when facing multiple opponents.}

{Warsinger: Gain Lyricist Skill. Can complete all Chants 20% faster.}

{Mentor: Gain 5% bonus to all skills when leading lower level heroes. Allied heroes gain 20% bonus to all skills.}

{Unseen: Gain 20% to all attempts to hide. Gain 10% to all damage and skills while hiding.}

{Banisher: Gain permanent access to the Chant of Garden’s Peace. Gain 10% speed and effectiveness for all Chants.}

{Seeker: Gain Ethereal Sense Skill. Gain 10% bonus to all skills when hunting monsters.}

{Leader: Gain Inspire Skill. Gain 5% bonus to all skills when leading heroes. Allied heroes gain 10% bonus to all skills.}

{Stubborn: Fatigue lessened by 20%. Wounds heal 10% faster.}

[Achievements]

{Spiderbane: 30% increase to all skills and damage against spiders. Bonus increases to 60% versus Mantrap Spiderlings, Troll Spiderlings, Mature Mantrap Spiders, Mature Troll Spiders, Elder Troll Spiders, and Elder Mantrap Spiders.}

{Corpsebane: 5% increase to all skills and damage against Undead. Bonus increases to 10% versus Rotted Levies and Wretched Corporals.}

{Lizardbane: 10% increase to all skills and damage against lizards. Bonus increases to 20% versus Flame Wretches and Flame Devils.}

{Slimebane: 10% increase to all skills and damage against slimes. Bonus increases to 20% versus Small Ironslimes and Large Ironslimes.}

{Paragon: All skills gain 10% effectiveness around fellow heroes.}

It made for quite a bit of reading, at this point. He sighed over the first two experiences; it was becoming harder and harder to see how [Farmhand] was ever going to be relevant again. At the same time, the list of [Experiences] and [Achievements] was getting gratifyingly long.

His newest [Experiences] almost immediately made him think back to his conversations with Master Taylor. He could clearly see how [Mentor] and [Leader] would line up, though he had no idea what the third of the set would be. [Determined] and [Stubborn] also seemed to match well; maybe there was a [Boneheaded] [Experience] that could give him a set? He smiled at his parents’ probable reaction to that combination and shook his head.

The others were still on the other side of the ridge, but Jack had already been reporting that they were running short on prey. Over the past three days, they had brutally slaughtered every wretch and slime on the other side of the ridge. It had gotten to the point where the others were talking about joining him in the valley. After all, they wanted to gain levels as well, and without fighting the higher ranked monsters, they wouldn’t be able to.

Clay considered the plan for a moment, and then nodded. He’d already gotten as much information as he probably needed, and the town was going to be safe. Better to get them going on their own progress rather than allowing them to stall. He’d ask them if they were ready once he got back.

“Yes. Yes. A thousand times, yes.” Natalie gave him a defiant glare.

Lawrence sighed and looked at Clay apologetically. “We had been…discussing how to bring things up with you, Sir Clay. I think we’ve done all we can on our side of the ridge. We won’t make much more progress unless we start chasing the monsters back into their own territory.”

“I agree.” Clay nodded. “So I can help lead you in tomorrow. We’ll need to move fast, but I think with my knowledge of where to strike, and your support, we should be able to make a large hole in their numbers.”

“As if you haven’t already been decimating them.” Jack smiled. “I’m just shocked you haven’t reached your next level by now, Sir Clay.”

He smiled a little. “Actually, I, uh, just did. Today, in fact.”

The others looked at him a moment, and then they started shouting and crowding around him to shake his hand or slap him on the shoulder or back. Anne whacked him on the shoulder, grinning widely. “So, what kind of abilities did you get? Anything good?”

Clay shrugged. “I don’t get [Charms] or [Feats] or anything, Just [Experiences].” He paused. “One of them works like [Mentor], so don’t be surprised if you find yourselves a little stronger than you usually are.”

“I doubt any of us will complain at all about that.” Xavien gave the others a rare grin. “Will we be hunting both devils and larger ironslimes? Or will we focus on one or the other?”

The question made Clay pause. “There seems to be a lot more slimes than lizards at the moment, though that may change. Should we set a goal of two slimes and one devil a day? For each of you?”

Natalie spoke up again, her voice careful. “I have an idea that may make it easier to achieve that, actually.” When the others looked towards her, she pulled out a long roll of parchment and spread it on the nearest table. “I’ve been making a map of the valley. At least, I was until we restricted our movements to the near part of the forest.”

Clay looked over and found that she had been painstakingly mapping out the area, including small marks that he assumed traced their patrols over the past few days. If the ‘X’ marks were kills, then they really had been very busy the previous few days.

The [Alchemist] looked over the map for a moment before continuing. “I think that if we set up a camp on the ridge here, then we can use it as a rest stop while we strike into the valley. Sir Clay, you can take us each out on patrol again, like we did with the wretches at first. While you are doing that, the rest of us can patrol together to make sure the smaller monsters don’t pass us by, and so that we can make sure that we that areas where we’ve removed the high level creatures remain clear. That will make it easier for us to reach the remaining monsters the next day.”

As she spoke, she traced various areas in the valley. Her gestures made Clay think of some kind of military strategist plotting out a grand campaign. He supposed that was more or less what she was doing, of course, just against monsters rather than an invading army.

“With this rotation in place, we should be able to reach level four three days from now. We’ll have the [Achievements] for both the larger ironslimes and the flame devils less than a week from now, at which point we can move to the next stage.”

The others were all nodding, but Clay frowned. He looked around at all of them, slowly becoming aware of the fact that the others had been discussing strategy on their own. Feeling a little chagrined, he cleared his throat. “The next stage, Syr Natalie?”

She paused, glancing up in surprise. Then her face grew red. “Sorry, Clay. We’ve just had a lot of time to talk about this while you’ve been busy.”

“You’ve all been working hard, too. I haven’t forgotten it.” Clay smiled, thinking back over his attempts to contain the swarms of spiderlings in the Tanglewood. “Without your help, I would have been buried in wretches and smaller slimes for the past two weeks. Tell me what you all thought about how to push forward from here.”

Natalie looked around at the others and then nodded. “All right. Once we have leveled up and the lower level monsters are cleared out of the valley, we can start pushing forward towards the mines. Everything the town has told us suggests the Lairs are there, probably inside of the mines themselves.”

Lawrence nodded. “The miners were the first ones to report the monsters, and the first ones to disappear. A lot of them talked about lizards pouring out of the tunnels, so that’s probably where we are going to find them.”

Anne broke into the conversation, dancing in to tap the map beyond where the valley lay. “So we figure that by the time we are all leveled up and have the [Achievements] reinforced, we can start sending you down into the mines to find the Lairs. You’ll be a high enough level to handle the bigger beasts, and we can keep the smaller ones busy on the surface.”

“Not that we intend to leave everything to you, of course.” Xavien offered him a small smile. “Once you find the thing, we’ll join you for the final attack. That way, we won’t be going in blind.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah, and the smaller creatures will be under control as well. While you are fighting the bigger ones, we can cut down on the others. It’ll make it that much safer for the town, and that much cleaner, once we finally decide to go in for the kill.”

Natalie tapped the parchment again, drawing Clay’s attention back to her. “Once we reach that stage, we can go in together, and you can kill the Guardians and destroy the Lairs themselves. We’ll keep the rest of the creatures off of you while you accomplish that goal. Ideally, we’d kill the lizards first, and then the slimes next.”

Clay nodded slowly. “That… would be really helpful, actually. The last Guardians were able to send a small army of the little ones out to fight intruders. It came out to be around fifty or sixty monsters in a group, and they could do it multiple times.”

“All the more reason to have a whole group of adventurers behind you when you try it, wouldn’t you say?” Anne grinned and looped an arm around his neck. “We can do our best to help you out, and with your abilities, we should be able to more than stand up to whatever else they have going on down there. What do you think?”

He turned the plan over in his mind, looking for flaws. The monsters could easily do something different and throw things off, but the reason it appealed so much to him was the fact that it would come together fast. With the others’ help, he could be looking for the giant ironslimes and flame horrors within the next couple of weeks, and destroying Lairs a week after that, instead of trying to cut back on the creature population slowly over the next few months. By spring, the entire thing could be done, and he could take them back to the Guild victorious.

Clay looked up and saw the others looking at him. There was a bit of anxiety on their faces, as if they were worried he’d reject them. He wondered, suddenly, if they had taken his assignment to the near side of the ridge as a punishment of some kind, or a sign of mistrust. If so, they had been wrong, and he needed to let them know that fact.

In fact, if anything, Clay felt nothing but admiration for them. They’d come farther, faster than anyone in the Guild could have hoped. As it was, the only ones he would have trusted more to guard his back were the ones he’d grown up with—and even now it was an even race between them.

“It sounds good. Well thought out, at least.” He tried not to sound gruff, but his voice was still a little hoarse. “You’ve all done extremely well, and I think that with this plan, and your help, we’ll be able to keep this town safe and wipe out these monsters long before spring comes.”

“As long as the weather holds out, anyway.” Anne paused as the wind suddenly howled outside, and then Jack and Xavien both pounced on her, playacting as if they were pummeling her. Lawrence laughed, and Natalie grinned. Clay just shook his head and then looked back at the map.

Just a handful more weeks, and it would all be over.

They set out for what Natalie had taken to calling their war camp the very next morning. Each of them carried enough supplies to set up a rest station for a day or two. None of them were foolish enough to actually camp out on the ridge—not until the nearest flame devils and large ironslimes had been driven back to the mines, at least—but it would still be a decent place to stay and rest between patrols until the daylight started to fade.

There were very few of the lesser creatures about as they traveled up the mining path, and those that did show up were usually exterminated long before Clay could manage to raise his shortbow or throw his spear. His companions had apparently grown well practiced at destroying them, to the point where they were spotting the wretches and slimes almost before he could.

Still, the tension increased as they climbed the ridge and looked out over the valley. Burnt thickets and glistening clearings covered the entire place, stretching from the distant hills to the ridge where they stood. Clay knew that some of them were already empty, thanks to his own efforts, but it was just as likely that some newer creatures had moved in to take them over.

He looked back at them and nodded. “All right. Natalie and Anne, you’re at the camp. Jack and Xavien, you’re on patrol. Lawrence, you’re the first one with me.”

They nodded, splitting off to their various duties. Natalie immediately started to add marks to her map, probably charting out the locations of possible enemies, while Anne accepted the packs of supplies from the others. Clay handed over his own pack with a grin. “Take care and make sure a wretch doesn’t light everything on fire.”

“Of course! I’ll only steal the best bread, too.” She laughed and winked at him, and Clay rolled his eyes. Jack and Xavien had already set off into the forest; as the first patrol of the day, they’d be looking to search the forest behind them to make sure there weren’t any monsters that had hidden there. Lawrence was watching Clay, his staff in his hands and a nervous expression on his face.

He gestured to the [Occultist]. “Let’s go, daylight’s wasting.” Lawrence nodded, and they set off into the forest together. The monsters awaited them below.

“I wouldn’t say they are blind. More just limited.”

They were making their way through the valley, leaving behind the stinking carcass of Lawrence’s first large ironslime kill. The [Occultist] had surprised Clay by simply walking around the slime, seemingly ignoring the tendrils that were trying to burrow through the soggy ground towards him. Then he’d made a gesture, and the slime had simply died, its core crushed by earthen tentacles beneath the ground. Clay hadn’t even seen it happen; Lawrence had needed to show him and explain afterwards. Since then they’d been talking about the [Occultist]’s impressions of the monster during the time since.

Clay frowned. “So they do see?”

“Nope. Completely blind.” Lawrence grinned. “I don’t think they feel vibrations the way you were saying those spiders did back in the other Lair, either. It wouldn’t work as well with the soft ground, right?”

He felt his frown deepen a little. The [Occultist] had clearly been using his own unusual abilities to analyze the creature, but he was sharing the information in a way that made him think of Master Taylor—as if it was something precious that had to be doled out a small amount at a time. “So no vibrations, and no eyes. How did they always know I was there?”

Lawrence tapped his nose. “You’re forgetting another sense.”

“They smell me?”

The [Occultist] laughed at Clay’s incredulous tone. “Yep! At least, that’s what I think.” He ducked below a tree trunk, habitually scanning their surroundings for threats as he moved past it. “They probably have an excellent sense of smell, and if the wind is blowing just right, they’ll probably sense you coming from leagues away. Gives them plenty of time to feel their way closer to where you’ll be standing.”

Clay thought over his encounters with the things. The observations appeared to fit well enough, though it still galled him that his use of Soul’s Shadow apparently hadn’t helped very much. If anything, the slimes had been slower to react when he hadn’t been using the [Chant]. A thought occurred to him. “Could they smell magic too?”

Lawrence blinked, pausing for a moment. Then he shrugged. “I don’t see why they couldn’t. That’d explain why it seemed to catch on a little faster when I was using the [Chant]. We can always test it a little on the next one.”

It seemed like a decent idea. They did have at least another chance to test it once they reached the next slime.

First, though, they were approaching a burnt grove where he was moderately certain a flame devil was hiding. Clay turned his attention to it, wondering which side of the grove the devil was hiding on. He’d never found one inside the grove, so it had to be somewhere on the outside.

The [Occultist] studied the grove as well, clearly thinking through the same problem. “So let’s see. If I wanted to ambush someone in the middle of that grove, where would I want to hide?”

Clay glanced at him before turning fresh eyes on the grove. He almost answered, but held his tongue. Lawrence needed to be able to find these things by himself, especially if they would be hunting the devils on their own within the week.

After a few more moments, Lawrence circled around the grove to the right. Clay followed, keeping his eyes on the trees and underbrush around the partially incinerated thicket. The [Occultist] stalked for a few minutes, pausing occasionally to stare at one trunk or another. Then he stopped and sighed, before glancing in Clay’s direction. “That one?”

He followed Lawrence’s nod and found the flame devil. It was hiding, head down, up against the trunk of a surviving tree. Both of its swiveling eyes were already fixed on them; frustratingly, the flame devils had always been difficult to fool or hide from, even when Soul’s Shadow was active. “Yeah, that one. You ready?”

The [Occultist] nodded. “Yeah. I’m ready.” He shifted his hands on his quarterstaff. Then he walked forward, making a quiet gesture.

Clay followed, carefully standing to the side of the adventurer. If the flame devil sprayed fire pitch, they’d both need to be able to dodge to avoid the liquid fire, and he didn’t want them to be tripping over each other. Lawrence didn’t appear to be thinking along those lines, however. The reason why became clear a moment later, as his very first [Charm] became active and the flame devil’s head was engulfed by dark shadows and buzzing noise.

For a moment, the devil seemed to freeze in shock. Then it let out a gigantic croak of rage, and began to scuttle forward across the snow. Claws flashed, and Clay could see the lights of its fire start to gather in its maw.

Lawrence kept walking forward and made another quiet gesture. Stone tentacles abruptly tore out of the ground, wrapping around the flame devil’s legs and pinning it in place. The devil fought against them for a moment, trying to rip its way free. Then it gave up and drew back, preparing to launch a stream of flame at its targets.

Clay began the [Chant] of Vanishing Ember, but Lawrence just made another gesture, and more tentacles shot out of the ground. They wrapped around the devil’s mouth, trapping it shut with a sudden crack. The devil’s eyes seemed to bulge suddenly, and its camouflage abruptly dropped away. Its natural hide, soot-black and highlighted by fire that seemed to flicker between its scales, stood out against the backdrop of the snow it had been crossing.

The stone tendrils that had trapped its legs began to flake and drop away, and the shadows faded from its face. It jerked one of its legs free and started to scrabble away at the tentacles that had grabbed hold of its head. Clay saw its bladelike claws catch and strike sparks, but the [Charm] held fast.

Lawrence walked around to the opposite side of the devil’s body. The monster’s frantic jerking became more wild and desperate; the stone around its left leg started to fracture. Before it could pull another leg free, however, the [Occultist] raised the staff high over his head and brought it down.

The blow crushed something in the devil’s front left shoulder; Clay winced slightly as something crunched. Lawrence struck again and again, smashing more scales and the bones beneath them. Each strike was delivered with a brutal amount of force. It took six strikes before the devil finally lay still, but the thing had clearly been crippled by the second hit across its back.

Lawrence eyed it for a moment and then stepped back. He glanced at Clay. “I know, I know, it wasn’t very sporting.”

Clay shrugged. “I think the monsters don’t particularly care about playing fair. We shouldn’t either.” Then he felt compelled to add some criticism, though he felt reluctant to do so. “There’s no harm in hurrying it up, however. While this one was alone, that’s not always a guarantee. Taking out one enemy quickly might help you survive fighting two or three at once.”

The [Occultist] nodded, his face growing a bit red. “Ah. Yeah, you’re right.” Then he laughed. “Serves me right for trying to show off.”

Despite himself, Clay snorted. “Just don’t make a habit of it.” It had been an impressive show of Lawrence’s abilities, but he would have preferred a bit more utility rather than just acting casual about executing a monster of the flame devil’s rank. He shook his head, and they headed towards their next target, yet another large ironslime. So far, the day had gone well.